Valuations have begun, according to rumours, with the ultimate aim to sell the site for redevelopment. Opened in June 1960, it was one of the world's first purpose-built broadcasting centres. Whatever "redevelopment" is considered, its Grade II listing will hopefully save it from anything disastrous. Personally - though - as a 20th Century nostalgist, I'll be sad. More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Put like that, it's not much of a story, especially when you learn it's not actually notorious hook-handed hate-preacher Abu Hamza's house, but a property providing a home to his estranged family. (Hamza is currently at home at Belmarsh.) It hasn't stopped the Daily Mail, though, from getting hot and very bothered about the idea of the Hamzas not only living at the taxpayers' expense in a giant house in Shepherds Bush ("an area popular with bankers"... because they're very deserving, aren't they?), but also having their home underpinned, insulated and "painted an elegant cream", the bill handed to hard-working families. Hammersmith and Fulham Council respond that they have a responsibility to future tenants and taxpayers to keep fix the subsidence. More here.

The Abu Hamza property trail [January 19, 2007]

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Willesden Green will be the latest target in the Foxtons expansion programme. Previously, the area was serviced by the Notting Hill branch. As per usual, first branch customers will be able to sign a 0% commission contract, and then - once they've helped encourage other vendors fill the Foxtons shop window - continually wonder whether the agents are working as hard to sell their home.

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Damn... high house prices might be enough to keep the non-Boden set out of Muswell Hill, but what can you do about extra-terrestrials? Apparently fed up with visiting the snaggle-toothed, tailgating inbred of the country, people-of-other-planets are pointing their UFOs at a more chi-chi environment. So often, in fact, that - according to this - the people of Muswell Hill have informally renamed the nabe.

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Two bedrooms, lots of light, nice internal architecture and a bed raided on perspex... bestselling chick lit author Adele Parks is selling her Evershed Walk (Chiswick) flat. It's with KFH, £1.295m. Particulars here.

If these walls could talk... are you pleased to see a US edition, or is that a gun in your pocket? [June 11, 2010]

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Back in 2007, we reported on plans by Declan "Dec" Donnelly to renovate his Chiswick home so that it would match the Chiswick home of Anthony "Ant" McPartlin, which can be found, conveniently, a few doors away. The neighbours weren't happy, was the story, and I'm not surprised. A whole street can be tainted by that kind of weirdness. I didn't think Dec would get away with it... but apparently - and a little bit creepily - he has:

Just so visitors can tell the difference, Ant's is on the left and Dec's is on the right - the positions the pair religiously follow in their public appearances.

And there's nothing like mock-Edwardian when you want everyone to know you've arrived.

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That 66 inch-wide house on Goldhawk Road is back on the market, after four years. It was once home to photographer Juergen Teller and a senior Winkworths agent (at different times), and it's certainly unique... five storeys, a small garden, terrace, and some say the skinniest in the country. It's with Faron Sutaria, with a guide price of £549,950 (particulars here).

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Haart's London Property Index is showing a 22% rise since January, the average price of a London property rocketing from £152,207 to £194, 052. Hotspots? Blackheath Village, Southgate and Willesden Green. More here.

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Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has bought a plush pad in Hampstead. Here's how the Mail on Sunday managed to paint a picture of a venue fit for a Bond villain:

The neo-Georgian eight-bedroom property bought by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in a secluded road in Hampstead, North London, boasts a swimming pool, sauna room, Jacuzzi and suede-lined cinema room where he will be able to monitor world events.

... while stroking a long-haired white cat. He might choose to watch Laurel & Hardy films while he's in there, too, but they're probably right. He'll mainly use it to monitor world events. What's the country coming to?

Meanwhile, it gets worse. Over at the Telegraph, that final bastion of opera-loving, Jag-driving, University town murder-solving Englishness Inspector Morse has had his elegant home redesigned redneck-style by a bunch of hapless squatters:

Members of the Inspector Morse Appreciation Society regularly travel to see the historic house, which was once worth well over £2 million. But they have been horrified to find that the one-time delightful 19th century mansion now lies derelict with boarded-up windows and doors a far cry in from its TV heyday. The Polish squatters stripped valuable fittings from the house and have left its overgrown gardens strewn with discarded junk furniture and other rubbish.

Interestingly, the house isn't in Oxford, it's in Ealing.

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"What downturn?" asks Jasper Conran. His Chiswick Mall (those nice ones by the river... occasional flooding, a few good pubs, huge bay windows, views over an island) house has recently sold for £12.5m, breaking its own record (£7.25m) as the biggest Chiswick deal ever. Walpole House is set back from the road... it's an ex-home for vagrant girls and an ex-boys' school (the model, apparently, for Miss Pinkerton's Academy). Conran bought it just two years ago. Asking prices in Chiswick have been hit harder than most. According to Land Registry documents Conran sold the house on May 30.

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